A bunch of big companies are about to get punished by Google's latest search algorithm update

A number of the world's biggest brands are about to be punished
by Google's latest update to its search results algorithm —
unless they quickly make their sites more mobile-friendly.

The consequences for failing to get with Google's program are
real: In the last update,
eBay lost 80% of its prime rankings. Back in July 2014, Baird
Equity analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note to investors that
changes at Google may have cost eBay around 5 percentage points
of growth off its gross merchandise volume.

Google announced in February it is making changes to its mobile
search algorithm to give "mobile-friendly" sites — those with
large text, easy-to-click links, or those with responsive design
(which means webpages uses the same URL whether they are on
desktop or mobile, but "respond" according to the screen size of
the device) — higher rankings in search results.

Research from mobile marketing company Somo, found brands set to
be punished under the new update, which becomes effective on
April 21, include:

The official website of the British Monarchy

David Beckham's official site

MI5

The official website for the European Union

The Scottish National Party

Nintendo

Windows Phone

Versace

Next

American Apparel

Ryanair

Channel 4

Kellogg's UK

Dyson

P&O Cruises

Clairol UK

Cotton Traders

Danone

Legal and General

The Daily Mail

Websites affected are not just limited to this list.

Somo checked the brands highlighted by the Internet Advertising
Bureau UK's recently published
"Top 250 Mobile Audit" report as still struggling to get to
grips with mobile, as well as other high profile names like the
official David Beckham site and the official website of the
British Monarchy. Somo used
Google's own "Mobile-Friendly Test" to carry out the research
(you can check your own site on it too.)

Here's what happens when you test MailOnline.com, for example:

Google

MailOnline does have an app, which the site points users towards,
but nevertheless, it is not deemed mobile-friendly by Google.

Maria Mitsotergiou, Somo's head of search, said: "Google's
upcoming ‘mobile friendly’ algorithm update — the so-called
'Mobilegeddon' — is another indication of how important mobile
search is and will be this year. We regularly see organic search
becoming an increasingly important factor for paid search
success. The incorporation of ‘mobile friendliness’ as a ranking
signal for websites will separate companies proactively
opting-into mobile versus those that cannot see the benefit and
power of their mobile presence on search engine results pages
(SERPs.) This in turn will only benefit the synergy of organic
and paid search efforts by providing the right results in the
right place and at the right time.”